Lorain County wants to attract organic recycling facility

ELYRIA — Lorain County will begin marketing itself as a potential site for an organic composting and processing facility.

The county commissioners voted Wednesday to authorize the Lorain County Solid Waste Management District to seek proposals for such a facility, something Solid Waste Director Keith Bailey said there’s a market for.

“There are plenty of places in this county to locate something like this,” Bailey said after Wednesday’s meeting.

He said a composting operation run by Allied Waste near its landfill in New Russia Township was formally shuttered in 2010. He said another composting operation in Brook Park is closing to outside waste.

The only other nearby large-scale composting operation is Barnes Nursery in Erie County, according to Bailey.

He said depending on the type of facility proposed — which would have to win approval from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency — it could mean yard waste, food waste and manure could be processed there.

“We don’t want to leave any new technology off the table,” he said.

Bailey also said the potential facility wouldn’t be like the now-scrapped plan to build a sewage sludge pond in Pittsfield Township.

In other business, the commissioners agreed to support a consortium of 14 communities examining whether to bring in a company to offer recycling services.

Bailey said those communities aren’t under contract with Allied Waste and their residents can hire whatever trash removal company they want to use.

But he said a lot of those residents have gone with Rumpke, which doesn’t offer a cart-based recycling program in Northeast Ohio.

The idea, Bailey said, is for the participating communities to band together to get a lower rate from another recycling company.

The member communities are Avon Lake, Sheffield and Rochester and the townships of Sheffield, Grafton, Eaton, Penfield, Huntington, Brownhelm, Amherst, Brighton, Rochester, Pittsfield and Elyria.